Looks like the feat gives you a +2 untyped bonus to saving throws if you would break a promise, oath or sworn duty. If you promise to see something through to it's completion, and the full effect of a spell would stop you from doing that (death, mind control, permanent immobility) you get to apply that +2 bonus on that saving throw.
If he promised to protect another PC, the temporality of that promise matters. It is a binding verbal contract until the terms are fulfilled. If he or the PC interprets it as for one round, the bonus would apply for one round. If the PC interprets it as "for the rest of the journey" then the bonus applies until the journey's close, if you oath applies for a lifetime, the character must protect that character until one of them dies or lose the benefits of the feat.
Could you go into a little more detail concerning the relationship between the 2. That might be helpful to answer.
It looks to be an RP opportunity rather than a mechanics issue.
If you would like to add a bonus for upholding his promise then allow something small like a +1 extra when he aids another.
Not every role playing aspect has to have a mechanical bonus.
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Smells fishy to me. Is the other PC helpless or something? A knight doesn't pledge to protect his fellow knights when they go into battle because they're all combatants. I'm just sniffing an attempt to get a permanent bonus from the feat without having to role-play it, in essence a free +2 on all saves for 90% of encounters where the other player is "threatened."
When I ran 3.5 Dragonlance, Honor-Bound involved a noble activity, a "quest" in some ways. "I swear on my honor that I will hunt down the goblins who took your child," "I swear by the Oath and Measure that I will defend this caravan carrying food to the starving people of Caergoth," "It is my duty as a Knight of the Rose to protect the weak, and I will not stop until the ogre bandits plaguing your village are stopped."
"I swear I'll protect another PC, who by all means is not helpless and may even have greater combat ability than me..." just doesn't ring right.
While not Dragonlance, rather Japan based (samurai) honor is an easy to use honor mechanic found in Way of the Samurai supplement from Rite Publishing as well as on d20pfsrd.com
Might be worth a look, but then you'd have to look at the various class archetypes found in that supplement (also on d20pfsrd.com) for an honor based ranger, and 4 samurai archetypes, as well as honor traits and honor feats.
I am under the impression that Eastern and Western notion of honor are different.
I am under the impression that Eastern and Western notion of honor are different.
By definitions, yes, they are different, but the mechanic I linked is just a mechanic, and fluff wise can be explained as Western honor. Remove the word 'samurai' in this mechanic and replace with 'knight', 'noble' or whatever best fits. However, the mechanic works fine in any setting or cultural theme.
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"I swear I'll protect another PC, who by all means is not helpless and may even have greater combat ability than me..." just doesn't ring right.
But what if the other PC doesn't have greater combat ability? What if they're a pacifist healer or support caster? What if the other PC is politically or emotionally important to the person swearing the oath? My last character swore to protect a (significantly) higher-level NPC because she was a non-combatant healer, and because he was personally in her debt. If the same character had been an equal-level PC who regularly went into danger with him, he would have had double the reason to make such an oath.
That said, it does seem unfair to allow the oath-maker to squeeze a +2 bonus to all saves out of the situation just because he's always protecting the other PC. One option is to forget the feat and give him a very minor bonus like BltzKrg242 suggested - and permanently revoke the bonus and apply a minor penalty if the oath is broken. If you make the feat available, only allow the bonus on save-or-lose effects where losing would put the other PC in danger, or to break free of enchantments that force him to put the other PC in danger (in addition to normal bonuses for doing something against their nature).
The Knight of the Sword PRC does have something similiar.